


put down your sword & crown (come lay with me on the ground)

by possibilist



Series: it really did take this long [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa Week 2018, F/F, this is plotless but its rly soft so its all ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 10:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13902426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: this is rly late for clexa week but whatever it’s here (day 7 bc this is like future canon world but like nothing happened past 304) - clarke rly wants lexa to rETIRE partially bc her wife is hurt & stubborn abt it. also they have a baby. its soft & theres not a lot of plot.





	put down your sword & crown (come lay with me on the ground)

_achingly beautiful how the sky/ looked as i stood after they left. nicer somehow/ in the middle. all the trees tucking blackbirds/ into their darkness. it really did take this long._

—gabrielle calvoccoressi, _rocket fantastic (poems)_

 

//

 

she has a limp. it’s more pronounced during storms, especially in the winter, and sometimes you think your wife is far too young to have a limp. other times you think it’s amazing she’s made it this far, alive and mostly in one piece.

 

you’ve been together for fourteen years, been married for ten of them. lexa is kind, attentive, and very funny—sides of her most people don’t get to see, but ones that you know almost better than any of your own moods. hers come with some warning: a tick in her jaw, solemn, sad nods, hours of swordsmanship when she’s upset. you think she’s more beautiful now than ever, a few laugh lines around the corners of her eyes; she takes you to the ocean whenever she can, and you think her eyes are the sort of jade—clear and depthless—as seaglass, as lightning left here for you to see.

 

she’s the most incredible, tender, intelligent person you have ever met, and she has a limp, shuffling in from training, _again_ —and you. are. furious.

 

hale is babbling away in the corner, playing with some toys your mother had brought during her last visit. you watch her carefully because she’s walking now, and sometimes she looks at you  before she darts off across the room with an expression that reminds you so much of your wife that you have a hard time believing that lexa didn’t bear this child herself.

 

but today, soothed by the rain or the smell of bread you’re baking, she seems content with the small stuffed dog in her tiny hands. she looks up when lexa barges into the house, soaking wet and grimacing, but then goes back to her little game.

 

you open your mouth to say something, to snap at your wife, but she only holds up her hand exhaustedly before limping past you toward your bedroom quarters. you hear a stone sink into the bath you had started to draw, and then her first boot hit the ground. you wait for a moment, think about the old saying— _wait for the other shoe to drop_ —and then, unsurprisingly, your wife’s does, softly and finally onto the worn hardwood of your bathroom.

 

you put hale in her little playpen—she doesn’t protest, just clings to her stuffed toys, and you brush back the mess of dark curls on her head and kiss her forehead when she smiles up at you—and then sigh. she’s the brightest, most special thing in the world and it had been lexa, surprisingly, who had advocated so passionately to adopt this tiny baby, abandoned in the woods near her home village. you had been hesitant: the ground is still not a gentle place, and it is not easy to love the most powerful person in the world. it is not easy, not _really_ , for you to be mothers.

 

but she smiles, little dimples and all, and you hold her cheek for a moment before turning to go tend to your wife.

 

when you walk into your bathroom, lexa is naked, sort of staring at the tub. she’s put oils in it, and a few dried flowers; the room smells like lavender, like milk and honey, and if you weren’t already so mad you would be struck by it all, how beautiful and long and toned your wife is, wiry muscles and gentle curves, the steam causing her sun-kissed skin to flush gold. but lexa is crying, heaves a sigh, and then looks at you sadly, and some of your anger melts away.

 

‘i can’t get in,’ she says, quietly, and you’re surprised she’s speaking in english. perhaps it’s to feel further away from the words. she does this sometimes, when things are especially difficult for her to admit.

 

you don’t say anything, just take your shirt off and lay it on the chair. you slip out of the loose pants you have on, then your underwear, lexa watching you with an unreadable expression, one full of apology and relief.

 

‘hale?’

 

‘she’s in the playpen. she likes the toys my mother brought.’

 

lexa nods once, and then you step into the tub, and hold out your hands.

 

she takes them, is graceful with one leg when she steps into the relief of the warm water, but then it is slow going for a few moments, and her hands grip yours tightly, almost frantically, while she gets her other leg over the edge of the tub, her hip not bending like it should.

 

you stay quiet when you settle in, and she leans back and closes her eyes. her hand massages the muscle above the sore, stiff joint, and you know you need to wait, no matter how much you want to berate her, or argue, or yell.

 

‘you’re angry with me,’ she says, after a while, sitting up and looking at you. she does so with tenderness and no trace of anger herself.

 

‘yeah.’

 

‘we’ve been fighting for a while, now,’ she states, no question, and reaches for your hand.

 

‘we have been,’ you agree.

 

you take her hand, her gentle, calloused fingers, turn it upside down and trace the scar on her palm from so many years ago.

 

‘i do not know how to stop,’ she says, shakily, after moments of quiet.

 

‘you don’t have to stop being a leader, lexa,’ you say. ‘i’ve never wanted that for you.’

 

‘how can i be commander, though, if i do not fight with my people?’

 

a rush of frustration wells up in your chest, but her eyes are wide, and she looks young and lost and scared. and you are her wife.

 

‘we are at peace.’

 

she stares down at the water, swallows. ‘the other clans cannot revolt, if i were to relinquish power in any way.’

 

‘you are a brilliant leader,’ you say, and reach toward her to raise her chin. you nod when she meets your eyes. ‘you brought them together when you were 16. you overcame a _shit show_ when we fell to the ground, and the mountain, and the ice nation.’

 

she sighs, nods minutely.

 

‘things will not fall apart of you give some power to aden. if you usher in someone capable and guided by your own hand.’ you squeeze her hand. ‘you are a _brilliant_ leader, my love.’

 

‘he is quite capable.’

 

‘you’ve trained him since he was a boy.’ you smile, because you very much do like aden, and he’s grown into a fine warrior and strategist, perfectly adept and passionate and willing. ‘he will be good for polis, good for your people.’

 

‘i still want to lead,’ she says, looks at your seriously, tilts her head in a challenge.

 

‘you will,’ you say. ‘just with a little more help.’

 

you give her the few minutes she needs; you stay quiet and wash her hair gently, massage her hip.

 

‘okay,’ she says, finally, resolved and upset and relieved.

 

you kiss her—tender and kind, rough, a mess of a kiss, the first of a certain kind—and she kisses you back.

 

when you back up, your foreheads pressed together as you both breathe, she says, ‘i do not trust your machines, and i only vaguely trust your mother’—you laugh, nod—‘but i think i may want to learn more about the procedure.’

 

you want to _sing_ , or shout or dance or something, because your mother has offered surgery to fix lexa’s hip for months, since you forced lexa to go to arkadia for x-rays and a consult.

 

‘we can do that,’ you say. ‘i’ll radio her.’

 

lexa shakes her head, kisses you again. ‘tomorrow,’ she says, and when you lift a brow, she sighs. ‘i give you my word, clarke.’

 

‘alright.’

 

‘just,’ she sighs, stands slowly, less stiff than before because of the warm water, ‘i need a day. i want a day with you, and with hale. to—to, i think, know what i can have.’

 

‘we do want you around, you know.’

 

lexa smiles, and, almost as if on cue, hale starts _wailing_ for both of you, her little voice full of over-dramatic sobs. if you had to bet, it’s because she tossed her toy over the side of her playpen.

 

‘your daughter, undoubtedly,’ she says, as you help her out, and you flick water on her with a laugh before you follow.

 

she wraps her hair up in a towel and puts on a robe before walking out and collecting your mess of a child, her eyes brimming red. hale sniffles in lexa’s arms and you bend down and then hand her the little dog, wipe her tears before she hugs it tightly against lexa’s shoulder.

 

‘come on, _strikon_ ,’ lexa says softly. ‘mama made us breakfast.’

 

she situates hale at the table in her little chair, and you bring the fresh bread and cheese over with some fresh berries you’d had to trade a significant amount of venison for, but you _are_ the commander’s wife, after all.

 

and you have breakfast with your family, lexa breaking the bread into pieces small enough for hale, and trying to get her to speak in complete sentences, and making both of you laugh. lexa looks at you after one particularly stupid joke that had pulled a snort out of you, and she says, ‘i am glad to no longer argue, _niron_.’

 

‘you’re an exhausting person to love,’ you say, but you’re smiling and she kisses your hand.

 

you clean up together, in rhythm and quietly, and hale starts to nod off in her chair, so you take her and put her between you in bed, watch her little chest rise and fall before you look at your wife.

 

‘she will need braids soon,’ she says, sifting her fingers through hale’s soft hair.

 

‘that’s all on you.’

 

lexa laughs softly. a weight has been lifted from her, you know, years and years of pain and being in a lifetime of forced debt to her people. she has fought for peace, and been willing to die for peace, and all you want—all you want for her, for your love, more than _anything_ —is the same grace she has given to everyone around her.

 

you brush a strand of hair behind her ear, trace down her jaw. ‘you can rest,’ you tell her, and she closes her eyes like it’s some kind of holy benediction. a few tears leak down her cheeks but you let them, and then she dries her eyes and nods and props herself up so she can reach over hale to kiss you.

 

‘ai hod yu in,’ you say, quietly, and she smiles softly, tiredly.

 

‘i love you too.’

 

you put your hand on her hip, rub gentle circles below the waistband of her loose pants, her skin smooth and soft. your mother will cut it open, fix her bones and her nerves, and after that you will trace healing into her scar.

 

but for now you are all whole, and the rain has turned to heavy snow outside the windows. the fire is full and burns away; hale sighs and lexa’s breathing evens out. you watch them, and the wind howls outside, but you are warm.

 

 


End file.
